Bong Joon Ho is nothing if not a romantic. He's a great many things besides that — a stellar filmmaker, an incisive writer and a delightful showman — though his cinema has always held a great love for people. From Parasite, his outstanding film that rightfully ran the tables at the 2019 Oscars, to Okja, Snowpiercer, The Host, Mother, and Memories of Murder, all are bursting with a prevailing sense of compassion for character. While the grim darkness of the fallen worlds he explores threatens to strangle them, Bong carves out slivers of humanity despite it all. Be it in a final letter delivered from a father to his son through code or a rebellion on a train barreling toward catastrophe beginning with someone who must quietly yet courageously stare down oblivion, his films are best when attuned to the small pockets of humanity in life's agonies.
In Mickey 17, a largely winning sci-fi adaptation that significantly expands on Edward Ashton's original novel Mickey7, Bong is again interested in these critical slivers and pulling them into something of a grand statement on life, death and capitalism. Even though it's not his best work, as there's much that proves fragmented in a way he doesn't fully get a handle on, it's a fascinating film that's darkly funny to an often biting degree and emotionally resonant when it counts. That it also sees an excellent Robert Pattinson giving not just one, but two of his greatest, most layered performances to date (each of which is right up there with his work in The Lighthouse... except here he sounds a lot like Steve Buscemi), makes it into an enthralling, entertaining romp of a time.
This all centers on the tragicomic story of Mickey (Pattinson) who can't seem to catch a break. To flee a declining Earth as quickly as possible due to some financial troubles he gets caught up in, he volunteers to become an "expendable" on a colonizing mission to another planet. It's a job nobody wants as it involves dying horribly over and over, only to be "printed out" to do it all over again. He's a guinea pig to make sure nobody else faces any risk — they can just throw him at things instead, even if he smashes to pieces on impact. He gets asked over and over, "What's it feel like to die?" — a comically existential weight that hangs over all he does. The one person who ever worries about him is his charmingly chaotic girlfriend, Nasha (played by Naomi Ackie of last year's so-so Blink Twice in one of her best roles to date), and this is where Bong finds the film's heart. Though the two care deeply for each other, they must contend with the group's Trumpian dictator, Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), and his wacky wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette), who may destroy Mickey and the society of alien beings living on the planet for selfish ends.
While Pattinson rightfully deserves praise for how he delicately distinguishes what becomes two central versions of Mickey, with this serving as the engine of the story and a fun extended gag, it's Ackie who is just as amazing in how she captures a joyously unhinged silliness crossed with an affecting sense of compassion. One scene where Nasha joins Mickey in isolation right before a painful death is from the novel, but becomes something much more impactful in how Bong lets us just sit with the characters. The film itself is increasingly like Paul Verhoeven's satire Starship Troopers, both in terms of its alien story and how it executes its ideas with plenty of entertaining flair, though it's Bong's prevailing humanism that proves to be the moving emotional core of the experience. When it builds to a clever, well-staged conclusion, you're invested because of this. There are plenty of shenanigans, but Bong uncovers something surprisingly poignant in the end.
Though the film's overarching reflections on the perils of fascism stumble, with Rufflalo's more broad performance making Idiocracy's President Camacho look downright reserved, it fittingly finds its footing in the finale as the characters rise up together. It taps into how solidarity and sacrifice for those we care about can ensure a courageous collective of people will build a better world. Where Verhoeven saw fascism consume his characters, Mickey 17 leans into an earned compassion and the hard work required to protect it. Bong is a romantic, but he's clear-eyed about the challenges of fighting capitalism's cruelty. No matter how many Mickeys it takes, he captures how it's a fight we all must fight in a film worth embracing. Mickey may never fully answer "What's it like to die?" but Bong discovers what it means to truly live for each other.
Mickey 17
Rated R
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
Starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo
